Cold Ridge. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ and images, but she pushed them back and tried to focus on her scone, her tea, the brisk morning and the other people on the streets. Kids, workers, bag ladies, students. She passed a nursery school class of three-and four-year-olds hanging on to a rope to keep them together, their young teacher skipping along in front of them like the Pied Piper. The kids were laughing, making Carine smile.

      She got a seat on a subway car and shut her eyes briefly, letting the rhythms of the rapid-transit line soothe her as the train sped over the Charles River, then back underground. She got off at the Charles Street stop and walked, peeking in the shop windows on the pretty street at the base of Beacon Hill, giving a wistful glance at the corn stalks and pumpkins in front of an upscale flower shop. They reminded her of home.

      When she turned down Beacon Street and her cell phone rang, she almost didn’t answer it, then decided if it was Gus and she ignored him, she risked having him send in the National Guard. She hit the receive button and made herself smile, hoping that’d take any lingering strain out of her voice when she said hello.

      Gus grunted. “Where are you?”

      “Just past the corner of Beacon and Charles.”

      “Boston?”

      “That’s right,” she said. “What’s up, Gus? How’s the weather in Cold Ridge?”

      “Gray. Why aren’t you home with your feet up?”

      “I’m on my way to the Rancourt house. I want to see—”

      “Carine, for chrissake, they can’t possibly need you today. Why don’t you drive up here for the weekend? Or jump on the train and go visit your brother or your sister for a couple days. They’d love to have you.”

      “I’m fine, Gus. I’ve been thinking about it, and I just need to go back there.”

      “For what, closure? Give me a break.” But he sighed, and Carine could almost see him in his rustic village shop, amid his canoes and kayaks, his snowshoes and cross-country skis, his trail maps and compasses and high-end hiking clothes and equipment. “The police haven’t arrested anyone for this guy’s murder. You know what that means, don’t you? It means whoever did it is still on the streets.”

      “I’ll be careful. Besides, the police and reporters are still bound to be there—and if not them, the Rancourts, their security chief—it’ll be okay.”

      “You thought it’d be okay yesterday before you walked into the library, didn’t you?”

      “Gus—”

      “Yeah. Yeah, I know. Nothing I can do. But I don’t have to like it.”

      She heard something in his voice and slowed her pace. “Gus? What?”

      “Nothing. Take care of yourself. You even think something’s wrong, you call the police, okay?”

      “Believe me, I will.”

      She clicked off, feeling vaguely uneasy. Gus was holding back on her. It wasn’t like him. Normally he was a straight shooter. He had warned her about getting mixed up with Tyler North, when it was obvious their long tolerance for each other had sparked into something else. Her uncle said his piece, then shut up about it. When Ty dumped her a week before the wedding, Gus’d had the moderate grace not to actually say the words “I told you so.” But he didn’t need to—he had told her so, in no uncertain terms.

      What wasn’t he telling her now?

      When she reached the stately mansion on Commonwealth Avenue, Carine could feel her scone and tea churning in her stomach. The police cars and yellow crime-scene tape were gone, and she didn’t see any obvious sign of reporters. She mounted the steps and noticed the yellow mums were gone, too.

      Sterling Rancourt opened the front door before she knocked. He was a tall, silver-haired man in his early fifties, and even the day after a man was murdered on his property, he radiated wealth and confidence. He was raised on the South Shore, where he and his wife owned their main home, and had gone to Dartmouth and Wharton, taking over his family’s holdings in business and real estate twenty years ago. He was dressed casually and looked only slightly tired, perhaps a little pale—and awkward at seeing her. Carine thought she understood. He’d tried to do her a good deed by hiring her to photograph his house renovations, and she’d ended up discovering a dead body.

      She mumbled a good morning, feeling somewhat awkward herself.

      “How are you doing, Carine?” he asked. “Yesterday was a nightmare for all of us, but for you, especially.”

      “I’m doing okay, thanks.” Suddenly she wondered if she should have come at all. “I guess I didn’t know what to do with myself this morning.”

      He acknowledged her words with a small nod. “I expect we all feel that way. We won’t get back to work here until next week at the earliest. Why don’t you take a few days off? Go for walks, visit museums, take pictures of pumpkins—anything to get your mind off what happened yesterday.”

      Carine leaned against the wrought-iron rail. He hadn’t invited her in, but she thought it would seem ghoulish and intrusive to ask outright if she could see the library, even if it was the reason she was here. “That’s probably a good idea. I thought—look at me. I brought my digital camera. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

      “It’s all right. We’re all struggling today. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing here myself. You’re a photographer. Having your camera must help you feel like it’s a normal day.”

      “Louis—his family—”

      “Everything’s being handled, Carine.”

      She suddenly felt nosy, as if she’d overstepped her bounds. “Have you talked to Manny Carrera? Do you know where he is?”

      “Carine—perhaps it’s best if you go home.” Sterling’s voice was gentle, concerned, but there was no mistaking that he wanted to be rid of her. “The police know how to get in touch with you if they want to speak with you again, don’t they?”

      “Of course—”

      Gary Turner, Sterling’s security chief, appeared in the doorway next to his boss. He nodded at her. “Good morning, Carine,” he said politely. “It’s nice to see you, as always. The two lead detectives will be back later this morning. I’ll tell them you stopped by.”

      Dismissed, Carine thought, but without rancor. Sterling was just as on edge as she was, neither of them accustomed to dealing with this sort of emergency. But Gary Turner radiated calm and competence, a steady efficiency, that she found reassuring. He was a strange guy. The Rancourts hired him in the spring, and she’d met him in Cold Ridge a few times before she went to work for them herself. She didn’t understand exactly what he did, or what Manny Carrera was supposed to be doing, for that matter.

      She was aware of Turner studying her, an unsettling experience, not just because he was so focused—he looked as if he’d lived most of his life underwater, or maybe in an attic. He had close-cropped, very thin white hair. He might have been in his eighties instead of, at most, his forties. His skin was an odd-looking pinkish-white, its paleness exaggerated by his habitual all-black attire. He had no eyebrows to speak of, and his eyes were a watery, almost colorless gray. He was missing his middle and ring СКАЧАТЬ